First time on the (court) bench

The resident magistrate has a worthy program in which he invites community members to sit with him on the bench. Today it was my turn.

I am probably more familiar with court procedure than most of his guests, but I found it interesting to compare what happens here with what I have seen in Kalgoorlie and Myrtleford.

There were far fewer indigenous defendants than Kalgoorlie, but many cases involved people from the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, which was also true in WA and at Myrtleford.

I can’t believe as many people turn up for court as they do in casual clothes, work gear or jeans/track suits.

Here’s a memorised summary of some highlights from my 90-minute session:

1) A woman stole a blouse from a store. She was on a good behavior bond and bail at the time. She pleaded guilty, but despite the trivial offence is facing a prison sentence. Case adjourned.

2) A young man was charged with various motoring offences. The vehicle involved was found at the Kentucky Fried Chicken car park and a bouncer from a nightclub across the road claimed in a statement to have seen the defendant leaving the car from the driver’s side.

The woman he was with identified him as the driver, but has apparently made a contradictory statement to the young bloke and his parents, recanting her story.

The defendant said he was in the back seat of the car with this woman for about an hour! It was hard to keep a straight face on the bench as I maintained a magisterial pose! And apparently he’d just broken up with his girlfriend.

None of this was sworn evidence. The magistrate was simply being asked to overturn the driver’s automatic licence disqualification pending trial. He rejected this notion, saying he needed to be convinced an acquittal was likely and that wasn’t the case.

3) A 48-year-old man from Naracoorte appeared on charges of possessing child pornography. He was caught in the international sting by Federal Police earlier this year. The matter had to be adjourned because police haven’t yet sorted through the million-plus images.

Yes, that’s right. He allegedly had more than a million pornographic images involving children on several hard drives and numerous CDs. The defence is arguing that not all the images are pornographic, so some poor police officer is going to have to classify them all. This irritated the magistrate, but he was helpless to do anything.

4) There was a bail application from a man who has been in jail for several weeks after breaching his last bail. He allegedly assaulted his girlfriend, who he was not supposed to associate with, while on bail previously. She has now tried to drop the charges, but the police are concerned for her welfare and opposed bail.

The defence lawyer suggested his client had learnt his lesson the hard way in prison, offered a guarantor and home detention.

I said to the magistrate afterwards I thought he took a hard line in rejecting the application and maybe he could have made an alcohol ban part of the bail, as a few drinks the previous time preceded the trouble.

He said he wanted to know if the man has a criminal record in his home country before making a final decision, but hinted he would call the matter back and grant bail on stricter terms if his record is clear.

The magistrate now has an invitation from me to help edit a future edition of The Border Watch.